Parents and baby killed in accident between bus and car near Dead Sea
13 passengers on Egged vehicle, as well as driver, lightly injured in Rte. 90 collision
A baby and her parents were killed in a road accident between a bus and their car near the Neot Hakikar junction on Route 90 near the Dead Sea on Thursday morning.
Magen David Adom medical personnel performed CPR on the baby, but her condition was critical and she died at the scene.
“When we arrived at the scene, it was shocking,” Magen David Adom paramedic Maor Leav said. “In a ditch by the side of the road, we saw a car upside-down, smashed and crushed. Outside the car was a baby about a year old in critical condition,” he added.
First Sergeant Nissim Hayun, who was among the first at the scene was quoted by Maariv, The Jerusalem Post’s sister newspaper as saying: “When we arrived, we saw an accident between a private car and a bus, with the private vehicle on the side of the road.”
“A medical team was present and treated a passenger who was outside the car and the baby,” he continued. “Another passenger was trapped in the car and we began efforts to rescue the trapped passenger, who to our sorrow, showed no signs of life. At the same time, there was a spill of fuel that we had to deal with simultaneously to prevent any deterioration of the incident.”
Thirteen of the 50 passengers on board the Egged Hesaim bus suffered from minor injuries and signs of anxiety. The bus driver was injured and airlifted to Soroka-University Medical Center in Beersheba, where the injured
passengers were also taken by ambulance.
Police are investigating the circumstances of the accident.
According to road safety association Or Yarok, there have been some 1,350 car accidents on Route 90 in the past decade, in which – including Thursday’s accident – 120 people were killed and more than 4,000 injured, 374 of them seriously.
Looking at wider statistics, the National Road Safety Authority said that 228 people have been killed in road accidents since the beginning of the year. In the same period last year, 301 people died in road accidents. Since the beginning of the year, 214 fatal accidents have occurred, compared with 262 in the same period last year. Since the beginning of the month, 18 people have been killed in road accidents. In October 2017, 32 people died in road accidents.